Tag: Commission

I will be at The Clipper this week making badges, taking commissions and most importantly talking to people about YEA Plymouth our PAW 2018 project, and about the Plymouth Zine Library and zine workshops!

The Clipper is open to the public on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st July from 12-6pm, and Saturday will be a Community Open Day with food, music and activities. Come down and see what is going on and have a chat to me at 65 Union Street, Stonehouse PL1 3LU!

P.S. My poster was inspired by a detail in an amazing mural in The Clipper and the sign in the window:

Clipper mural, the inside of the building was still being worked on in this photoThe woman in the mural who inspired my posterPhoto of The Clipper before it was repainted from here, you can see the sign which inspired me in the top window

On the 8th of July, I’ll be at Give Up Your Day Job at The Junction on Mutley Plain! Give Up.. is an alternative/punk/DIY event where you can get a drink, a doughnut, and find cool artwork, clothes, books, badges, zines, and more, created by independent artists and makers including The Sad Ghost Club, Steph Parnell, Think Like Bas, Il Pleut, and Benjamin Wright! At my table I will have hand drawn greetings cards, each one is totally unique, so for the price of a regular mass produced card you can get something noone else has. I make cards featuring completely original characters as well as fan art cards in my own style.

Little Dudes birthday card, Summer 2018

Little Dudes energy card, Summer 2018

Little Dudes noodles card, Summer 2018

Little Dudes yarn card, Summer 2018

Some of my ‘little dudes’ cards, each one is a unique illustration of an original character

I’ll also be offering hand drawn cards on commission if you want something specific and personal, including portrait and fan cards. If you don’t have my zines yet I will also have those there, full of my illustrations and comics, alongside prints and badges – and I’ll have my badgemaker there so you can even make your own badge if you like!

Portrait commission on card, March 2018

Sombra postcard, Chloe card and a commissioned portrait card

This weekend is Small Press Day so celebrate on Sunday and come down to Give Up Your Day Job, 12-5pm at The Junction, Mutley Plain, and support your local artists and small press comic creators and zinesters!

Earlier this year I was commissioned to do some book illustrations for a satirical book for adults, in a children’s picture book style. I was given a brief with basic character descriptions and a summary of each part of the story that would require an illustration. The time frame for the project was short so I had to work quickly, and we agreed that I would do a full colour cover illustration and a series of black and white illustrations for the inside of the book.

The idea behind the book was quite clear, and I had no difficulty drawing up the title character in a simple clean style that suggested a sulking or tantrumming baby. The other characters in the book are a group of friends – Princess Mermicorn, Eddie the Eagle Beagle, Gingerbread Lion and Puss Puss. The last two of these were the easiest for me to imagine on paper because they came from quite simple ideas – a sweet female cat and a lion made from gingerbread.

The Friends

The other two were more difficult because their descriptions held a lot of different possibilities. For example, Eddie is part eagle and part beagle, and Princess Mermicorn is part princess part mermaid part unicorn! I came up with several draft designs for the characters mixing them up in different ways to find the one that worked the best. I sent my favourite designs back to my client for feedback, and they sent that back to me with more information and suggestions for refinement.

Once I had all of the character designs ready, I started to create draft sketches for the scenarios in the story. After coming up with different thumbnails for each page, I drew my favourites up larger, then finalised my decisions for each image. My client liked the hand drawn qualities of my artwork that they had seen on Instagram, and so to keep that I hand drew the elements of each image seperately. Later, I used Photoshop to piece these together, redrawing and scanning individual elements when I thought they could be improved.

Princess Mermicorn leading the way

The project was a bit stressful because of the short time limit and because I was also working on my final major project for college and two GCSEs at the same time! I was working at college all day then spending all evening and weekends working intensely on this, in between revision and study research. However I got some real world experience as a freelance illustrator working on a picture book, working to a real brief, using my skills to create characters to match specifications, and communicating with the client.

I like the characters and the story a lot, they are funny and I would be very happy to work on more illustrations for this series if the writers write more! I hope they like my work, the feedback I got from the client was good so I think so! I enjoyed working on picture book illustrations, and since this project I have been looking at picture book illustration as a potential career, or at least as part of the skills I could offer as a freelance illustrator.